


Salt Water

by springsdandelion (writergirlie)



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-31
Updated: 2012-07-31
Packaged: 2017-11-11 02:51:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writergirlie/pseuds/springsdandelion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss and Peeta begin working on the memory book. (A sequel to "<a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/384271">Breaking Bread</a>")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salt Water

_Step by step_

_Heart to heart_

_Left, right, left_

_We all fall down_

_Like toy soldiers_

_Bit by bit_

_Torn apart_

_We never win_

_But the battle wages on_

_For toy soldiers_

_We never win_

_Only emptiness remains_

_It replaces all_

_All the pain_

_\-- “Toy Soldiers” (Martika)_

 

 

At first, I think it’s bullets. Rat-tat-tatting in the distance, an all-too familiar staccato rhythm that triggers a flood of adrenalin, forcing my eyelids open and robbing me of oxygen. It takes a few seconds to orient myself, for my brain to register that I’m not in some tent in the middle of a combat zone, but in my own bed, with the sheets tangled at my feet and my shirt drenched in a cold sweat.

 

I hear it again.

 

Rat tat tat. I gulp in air, trying to place that sound. No, it’s not bullets. It’s much softer, lacking that sharp snap that echoes in the millisecond that follows when shots fire. There’s a slight _whoosh_ , like something brushing up against a solid surface. Water.

 

Almost like… sprinklers. Except I don’t have sprinklers. At least, I didn’t. 

 

Sunlight embeds itself in my eyes like splinters when I draw the curtains. I push the window open and poke my head outside, squinting in the glare of all that brightness. The rat-tat-tatting is more pronounced, and when I look down, I see Peeta kneeling down at the grass, fiddling with something as water swoops from one side to the other along the length of my front porch in a wide arch. Peeta’s frowning as he watches this, then goes back to fiddling—he must be trying to adjust something. The arch shrinks somewhat as the water’s range of motion decreases, but its spray is still a little erratic, and is getting more of the porch than any of the primrose bushes.

 

Finally, Peeta’s had enough, it seems; he sighs and reaches down to shut off the sprinklers, and this is when he notices I’ve been staring at him. He looks about as startled as I feel; I meant to look away before he can look up, but I still haven’t fully shaken the sleep out of my system and I’m too slow. Our eyes meet and even at this distance, I can see a blush stain the fair skin of his cheeks. My own face is growing hot by the second, too. I straighten just as he gets to his feet. He crosses the lawn until he’s just under my window.

 

“I woke you,” he says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think that you’d… I thought you’d be out hunting by now…”

 

A reasonable assumption. It is almost noon; most people would have been up and about hours ago, not staying in the cocoon of their bedrooms until something forces them out. But sleep is still a welcome escape from… _everything_ , and I just can’t seem to get enough, even if all I encounter there are different versions of the same nightmare. I’ve counted at least a hundred by now.

 

For as many times as I’ve held Haymitch in disdain for shutting out the world by retreating into sleep, I’m sure giving him a run for his money. Of course, anyone who drinks as much white liquor as he does would probably be passed out at all hours of the day, too. I wonder how long it’ll be before I’m drinking myself into a constant stupor just like he does. There are moments when the temptation to do it seeps into my bones—until I remember the acid burn of my own vomit scratching its way up my throat that morning after the Quarter Quell was announced, and the look of disappointment in Peeta’s eyes when he saw the pathetic shape I was in.

 

After all this time, I’m still afraid of letting him down.

 

“It’s all right, I needed to wake up anyway. I’m supposed to call Dr. Aurelius. He’ll sound off the alarm bells if I miss our standing date.”

 

Peeta’s mouth quirks up in a lop-sided smile. “So that’s what it takes to get a date with you, then?”

 

It’s the kind of comment the old Peeta would’ve made and it catches me off-guard. I’m still getting used to this new version of him, unsure what to make of it. Trying to figure out just how much of the Peeta I remember is still in there, how much Dr. Aurelius has succeeded in coaxing out.

 

But maybe the better question is how much of the old me is still inside—the one that couldn’t help but be affected by words like that.

 

My silence seems to have made him self-conscious. It’s as though an invisible wall has just gone back up, and the easy smile he had earlier has faltered, faded into a tentative one. His hand goes to the back of his neck, rubbing at it, his shirt riding up a little on his torso. He’s filled out a little more since I last saw him at the Capitol—still thinner than he was at either of the Games, but no longer scrawny and starting to gain back some of the bulk that he lost when Snow held him hostage.

 

The thought of it suddenly knifes at me, draining air from my lungs. I force myself back into the present, back to looking in his eyes, which is filled with a sadness that never used to be in there and now seems to be a constant presence.

 

“Thank you,” I choke out.

 

He blinks back at me. I realize it must have seemed as though the words came out of nowhere, and I backtrack to try and explain.

 

“For installing the sprinklers.”

“Oh,” he says. His cheeks turn red again. “I haven’t quite got ‘em working just yet, but I’ll keep at it.” He pauses. “Maybe I’ll wait until after you’re out hunting, though.”

 

The smile is back. It’s even brighter and lighter than the first one, and it reminds me of the ones he used to give me with such ease. A warmth spreads throughout my insides—it’s such a foreign sensation these days that I have to stop to figure out whether to process it as a good thing.

 

And it is. A good thing. A very good thing. I’d just forgotten what it felt like.

 

He gives me a half-nod, then turns—to start heading back to his house, I’m guessing. His name escapes my mouth before I can filter it, and there’s no hesitation whatsoever when he turns to look back at me.

 

“Is everything all right?”

 

I must have infused an edge of panic in my voice. I try to soften my tone considerably when I speak again.

 

“I was just… Do you want to come over for supper tonight? Sae’s bringing over a roast.” There’s a split second of silence after I say this, and dread sets in at the thought of it stretching into an uncomfortable length, so I scramble to say something else. Anything else. “If you’re not busy.”

 

Thankfully, he saves me from dwelling too much on the awkwardness of the useless addition.

 

“That sounds nice. Thanks.”

 

He raises his hand up to me—not quite a wave, but a gesture that draws out that foreign warmth again, all the same. I watch him trudge across the lawn and don’t draw the curtains again until I’ve seen him run up the steps and disappear into his front door.

 

 

* * *

 

He finally does get the sprinklers working a few days later. I’ve grown accustomed to the sound now; it no longer draws that fight-or-flight response from me, and in fact, I’ve come to associate it with good things: Peeta and primroses and the fresh spring air. When I hear that soft spray in the morning, it eases me out of sleep, and though I would never willingly admit to this without some threat of bodily harm (actually, it would take the threat of bodily harm to Peeta or Haymitch), I’m kind of glad that it gets me out of bed in the morning at a respectable hour, that it forces me out of the refuge of my room and out into the impossibly bright sunlight that never fails to flood my eyes when I first step out into it.

 

Being outside, in the woods, does me a lot of good. Or so Dr. Aurelius tells me. He says that I seem to be coping a little better, day by day—I’m not really sure how he can tell all of this over the brief phone conversations we have, but maybe I’m making a little more sense these days when I’m talking to him. At the very least, I’ve stopped giving him one to two word answers when he asks me something. That’s a start.

 

Peeta comes over more often now. He brings fresh bread when Sae drops by with breakfast, and sometimes comes by himself when she’s held up for one reason or another and can’t make it into the Victor’s Village. A few dozen people have started to trickle back into District 12—mostly those who’d lived in the Seam before the bombs hit, since only a handful of townspeople had survived the slaughter—and Sae’s started to get a steady stream of customers again. The Hob hasn’t quite been resurrected fully, but there are enough people to keep her busy some mornings.

 

He still knocks, even though I keep the door unlocked. Always waits for me to open it when he’s coming alone and doesn’t step inside until I’ve motioned him in. Sometimes we don’t exchange words, just sit side by side in the kitchen as we work through an entire pot of tea and half of a loaf of bread. We always save the other half for supper.

 

One morning he comes with a pastry box instead of a loaf. He wanted to see if he remembered how to make almond croissants, he explains, and after several tries, he nailed the recipe and wanted to share the fruits of his labor with me. I see that smile of his more frequently now, and it sets me at ease, helps me remember that not everything in my life is damaged beyond repair.

 

Peeta is healing right before my very eyes, and it gives me some semblance of hope that maybe I’m not such a lost cause after all.

 

I bite into one of the croissants, letting that strong flavor of butter flood my mouth, the sweet marzipan filling coat my tongue. I don’t realize that I’ve closed my eyes, lost in the moment, until I hear him laughing softly beside me.

 

“You like it, then?”

 

I smile. “Better than I remember.”

 

“Well, I guess there’s a bright side to losing some of your memory then,” he says. “If you can’t remember something, make something up and improve on the original.”

 

I’m not really sure if I’m supposed to laugh and as though sensing my hesitation, he nudges my shoulder gently.

 

“That was a joke.”

 

“That’s not the kind of thing you say to Dr. Aurelius in your sessions, is it?” I break off the end of another croissant and pop it into my mouth.

 

He shrugs. “Sometimes. Why, are all your sessions with him always serious?”

 

“I didn’t say that.”

 

They are, though. I haven’t cracked a joke—at least not deliberately—in months. Maybe even longer. Sure, I manage to slip in a sarcastic remark or two sometimes, but laughter—true, genuine laughter—hasn’t been a part of my life in a while.

 

We fall into silence again. He wraps his hands around his mug of tea and I finish off another croissant. Then I look at him and work up the nerve to ask him what I’ve been wanting to ask him since he walked in this morning.

 

“Peeta?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Will you come with me to the train station today?”

 

He looks up at me, intrigued. “Sure. What for?”

 

“There’s something coming for me. On the cargo train.”

 

His eyes light up with curiosity, but he doesn’t ask me straight out; he knows better than to do so. Knows that I dole out my answers only when I’m ready to.

 

“Dr. Aurelius is sending me something from the Capitol.”

 

“Oh.” He runs his thumb along the rim of the cup, then brings it to his lips to drink the rest of the tea and sets it back down. “Are you ready?”

 

 

* * *

 

I feel my chest tighten as soon as we approach the station. I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me before now, but it’s the first time I’ve been within yards of this place since boarding the train to the Quarter Quell, and my stomach twists painfully the minute it comes into view. I look over at Peeta, wondering whether the same thing has dawned on him as well, and sure enough, his jaw is clenched tightly. Panic starts to set in as I wonder whether I’ve made a grave mistake in bringing him here, whether he’s about to cross over into that dangerous territory—or if he’s already there and I’ll have only a fraction of a second before his hands reach for my throat.

 

His nostrils flare for a moment, but then I see him release a breath, and his hands, which had balled into fists, slowly unfold as he brings them to his sides. He’s holding them there rather awkwardly, but at least I know he’s let the threat—whatever there was of it—pass without incident.

 

The train pulls up onto the platform, making the ground beneath us rumble. The doors hiss open a few minutes later and a man dressed in a drab, faded blue uniform comes out and spots us, furrowing his brow. People don’t usually come to greet the cargo trains.

 

“Can I help you?” His voice is like sandpaper and smoke.

 

“There’s a delivery for me. From a Dr. Aurelius.”

 

He checks the clipboard in his hand. “Katniss Everdeen?”

 

“Yeah, that’s me.”

 

It takes an extra second or two before he looks up, and when he does, he gawks at me, as though trying to place me. The name must ring a bell, of course. I’d like nothing more than to take refuge behind something large so he stops staring at me, but unfortunately, I’m quite exposed and can only look at Peeta to avoid eye contact with the man. Peeta gives me a smile of reassurance, but stops short of taking my hand; I catch sight of his fingers about to reach for mine, until he stills the motion.

 

“Wait here,” the man says. “Your package is in the last car.”

 

He disappears back into the train, and I can feel the weight of Peeta’s stare, sense the question that he’s holding back. The old Peeta would have just come straight out and asked me; the new-still-emerging Peeta must be weighing the option in his mind.

 

I see his mouth start to form the words when I turn to look at him, but it’s not his voice I hear in the next instant; it’s the one from the man on the train.

 

“I’ll need you to sign for this,” he grunts, holding out his clipboard for me.

 

I nod and walk over to take it from him, wrinkling my nose at the shapeless, illegible scrawl that’s become of my once neat handwriting. Peeta’s staring at the box, which the man has slid off the dolly. It lands on the ground with a dull thud.

 

“I guess we should have brought some sort of cart,” I say, in my best attempt at an apology. I was never any good at them in the first place, and unbelievably, I’ve gotten even worse.

 

Peeta seems to get what I’m trying to say, though, and smiles, then bends down to retrieve the box.

 

“I don’t think… You can’t possibly carry that thing all the way back, can you?”

 

“C’mon, we’d better get a move on,” he says. He’s already several steps ahead of me. “But I think I’d better warn you—it’s probably going to take twice as long to get home.”

 

I hear a soft laugh somewhere nearby. Then I realize: I’m the one who’s laughing. He grins and hikes up the box with his thigh, then continues to walk. And as I watch him, it occurs to me what he’s just said.

 

_It’s probably going to take twice as long to get home._

 

Not, _get to your house_.

 

 _Get home_.

 

And that familiar warmth—not so foreign anymore, though I’m still getting used to feeling it again—emerges once more, spreading all the way down to my toes.

 

* * *

 

“Parchment?” He sets the box down on the couch in the study and lifts the lid off all the way.

 

“You were expecting something more exotic?”

 

“No, I… I’m just surprised, that’s all,” he says. “Kind of a strange thing to send you.”

 

“Well, I told him about an idea I had.”

 

Peeta lifts his eyes up to meet mine.

 

“It just sort of slipped out, and I didn’t think he’d make such a big deal out of it, but I guess he thought it would be a good idea…” My eyes drift over to another box, the one that sits on top of the desk, the one I haven’t been able to bring myself to go near. “Do you remember the plant book?”

 

He nods.

 

“I thought… well, there are things that would be a crime to forget.”

 

I wince as soon as the words come out of my mouth, even before I catch the look of sadness in his eyes. I want more than anything to take them back when he says softly, “Yeah, I know.”

 

“I want to remember. I want _us_ to remember.”

 

His fingers glide over the sheets, and the darkness in his eyes begins to diffuse. Sunlight parting the clouds.

 

“I’ll be right back,” he says.

 

He comes back a few minutes later with pencils and brushes and paint, and we take a few sheets with us into the kitchen where the light is brightest. He starts to sketch before I’ve even thought about what to ask for: me as a little girl with two braids, his father’s cookies, Lady with the ribbon tied around her neck.

 

“You told me a story about her once,” he says. “The goat. When we were in the cave, in the first arena. Real or not real?”

 

“Real.” I smile. “Except I didn’t exactly tell you the true story…”

 

He keeps sketching, but says, “Tell me the actual one sometime?”

 

“Sure.”

 

He listens intently as I recount it to him, sitting in silence, shading in Lady’s ribbon. When he finishes, we look down at his drawing, and my eyes start to blur with tears.

 

“We should seal them,” he says. “These pages. So they don’t smear.” He reaches for a mason jar he brought and unscrews the lid. “Salt water is best.”

 

He dips his brush in the salt water and runs it over the drawing. I can’t help but wonder if my own tears would work just as well.

 

“I want their deaths to count for something,” I say. I’m not sure where the words come from, but he seems to understand them all the same. “We’re still here and… they’re not.”

 

He sets down the brush. I see his hand reach for mine again, and this time, he doesn’t stop in mid-motion. He closes his fingers around mine, and his hold is strong and steady, just the way I remember.

 

“We live well. That’s what we’ve got to do. You and I, we have to live well, so we can live for them. And when it feels like it’s too much, we have to remember that.”

 

I try to answer, but the lump in my throat gets in the way. He lets go of my hand and brings his arm over to wrap around my waist, pulling me to him. I let my head fall on his shoulder, take in the faint cinnamon and dill scent of his hair. The fragrance of salt water still hangs in the air, the tang of it stings my lips as my tears roll down.

 

“Promise me we’ll live well,” he whispers.

  
I don’t know if I’m capable of it, but I know I want to try.

 

I take a deep breath and turn my head into him, nestling my body into his. And I tell him.

 

“I promise.”

 


End file.
